Best Way!?

Mike Eaton · Post by **Mike Eaton** » 17 years ago

I was Curious whatthe best way to promote a Stud was? Help?!?

Friedrich Barbarossa · Post by **Friedrich Barbarossa** » 17 years ago

I don't own one, but I suspect the best way is by sending a bunch of your own mares to him. That'd be a good first step anyways I would think.

Mike Eaton · Post by **Mike Eaton** » 17 years ago

i sent what I could.......

Matty Dubs · Post by **Matty Dubs** » 17 years ago

By breeding your own mares to him. This is why it is not recommended for new players to have a stallion. I know I am the pot calling the kettle black here, but I was aware all along it would be a difficult procedure. I really think you would be better served to return Noble Causeway to its original owner if you do not have the funds to support it on your own. If you do not support your own stallion, nobody else has any reason to do so. Other than keeping Noble Causeway in your signature, you really have done all you can to keep his name out there. You just need to have patience now. Things do not happen in a second in this game, it takes time. Remember, Rome was not built in a day.

Mike Eaton · Post by **Mike Eaton** » 17 years ago

I love having him and I guess ill just wait with him

Jolene Danner · Post by **Jolene Danner** » 17 years ago

Research his lines and figure out what type of mare, line of mare etc fits best. tell people about it. Then advertise on here about him. What i did with Aca was bug the crap out of people from the time he was 3 that he was retiring after his 4yo campaign. I PMed people to ask to book certain mares to him. I mentioned him in everyday conversation. Basically I annoyed everyone to the point of just breeding to him to shut me up. LOL Of course it's easier when you've got a champion 2yo, 3yo and multiple G1 winner. I'm also very used to marketing. i work in the Marketing dept at Canterbury park, i've been marketing since i was young and I'd go to places for organizations and sell popcor, Cotton candy, hot dogs etc. I've always been good at convincing people to buy something that they don't care to do. I sold lots of Barbaro bracelets this way on Derby day as well.

Really the best thing you can do is show people that you support your own stallion. Why should I breed to him is you don't. You are doing well with that, however it's really, really hard as a new player to do this effectively. Unlike Daryl, Eric, Ara, Laura, Brianna, Mallory, Amanda, etc who have very established broodmare bands and the ability to send super mares to thier newer stallions. If i am looking for a stud, i will not send amare to it if the owner of it hasn't sent at least 2 mares to it.

It's all about convincing people to use a product that they might not want to use. You should come up with creative ways to do that. Give away free breedings for things. Make it a buy one get one deal. Say all mares that have a win going 1 mile on the turf get a discounted breeding (for example).

Standing stallions successfully is a LOT of work. I only have 4. I support all 4 of them. Acapulco is really the only one who gets lots of outside attention. He has 91 progeny and 27 are mine.

Mike Eaton · Post by **Mike Eaton** » 17 years ago

its hard with Noble though because he only has one winner but all of his are young. A couple days i put his stud fee down to $50 to get mares and got 2 in a day wwhich i guess is good ill do more reaserch and find out which mares would be good for him.

Thanks

Eric Nalbone · Post by **Eric Nalbone** » 17 years ago

Mike, successfully promoting a stallion is one of the most difficult things to do in the SIM. The problem really lies in the fact that there are currently about 500 stallions in the game, and its hard to sort through them all. Once you've managed that, there's no incentive for a mare's owners to breed to one of those horses unless it has at least two of three attributes:

1) A stellar record as a stallion, having sired numerous talented offspring. Generally, this means stakes winning or at least horses that have shown on the racetrack the potential to win a stakes.

2) A stellar pedigree, especially if this pedigree sets it apart from other horses in the SIM (i.e. there are very few sons of Loki Flame in the SIM, so Kotya Peekin is a good example of a horse who offers a pedigree difficult to find elsewhere)

3) A stellar record on the racetrack.

Once you've got a horse with two of three attributes (generally, you're looking for a horse with the last two and the first would develop over time), its still often up to the stallion's owners to demonstrate to the rest of the SIM that the horse is a talented sire. Your sentiments don't mean much when the owner of a good mare is faced with the choice of breeding to a proven commodity in the breeding shed as opposed to a shot in the dark with an unproven stallion, so the responsibility falls to you to breed good mares to your stallion; if you don't, its a good bet that nobody else will!

Every one in a while, a message board post might get a few interested readers, but for the most part discounts like you've been offering don't provide any real incentive to breed a good mare to your stallion. Remember, most of these people have the time to sit on a foal for 2 years and count on it to earn money in the future, so if a Noble Causeway foal earns them $50,000 in two years, but by paying a little more, they could produce a foal that earns them $100,000 in two years. That $450 becomes pretty insignificant.

Add to that the fact that successfully supporting a stallion requires both getting good mares and then committing them to your own stallion rather than an outside stallion who might fit them better. You risk a lot on your stallion being talented; if he is, you win big, but if he isn't, you might have crippled your breeding operation for several SIM years.

Sorry there's no easy answer!

Jolene Danner · Post by **Jolene Danner** » 17 years ago

mike eaton wrote: its hard with Noble though because he only has one winner but all of his are young. A couple days i put his stud fee down to $50 to get mares and got 2 in a day wwhich i guess is good ill do more reaserch and find out which mares would be good for him.

Thanks

It's hard for any stallion. You need to do work and show everyone that you are behind him 100%! If you don't care, why should I?

Mike Eaton · Post by **Mike Eaton** » 17 years ago

so I should find more turf mares to breed to him this year?

Mike Eaton · Post by **Mike Eaton** » 17 years ago

one of his babies was 5th in a stakes race does that help?

Susie Rydell · Post by **Susie Rydell** » 17 years ago

I have one stallion in particular that jumps to mind as one I've done a hideous job promoting. He's a grade 2 stakes winner with a decent pedigree that I've just done horribly by. And it's all because I (with ~89 broodmares) have done a godawful job of proving him. The problem is, he's a dirt sprinter. And even with that many mares, I only have 7 dirt-sprinter mares. By the time he retired, I'd already bred 2 of them and 4 of them remained in training the following year. The seventh visited someone else. He had no foals the first year he was at stud. Last year, I had been planning to send him my best mare... and she was barren. He's infertile this year. As a result, he'll have a whopping 3 2yos next year, none of them with stellar dams, and I'll be trying to peddle him to people then. Good luck to me.

Mike Eaton · Post by **Mike Eaton** » 17 years ago

HAHA GOOD LUCK

Carolyn Eaton · Post by **Carolyn Eaton** » 17 years ago

I have 4 active stallions - 3 of which are dirt sprint to mile types, so I bought a lot of dirt sprinter broodmares to support them - then I rotate them. None of the mares are stellar (though I have a few better ones now), each stud gets 6-8 mares from me, and I generally get enough outside interest to pay their board and a little, and selling several of their foals helps build and improve my stable.

Daryl Dennis · Post by **Daryl Dennis** » 17 years ago

Eric Nalbone wrote: Add to that the fact that successfully supporting a stallion requires both getting good mares and then committing them to your own stallion rather than an outside stallion who might fit them better. You risk a lot on your stallion being talented; if he is, you win big, but if he isn't, you might have crippled your breeding operation for several SIM years.

So Eric, what you are saying is that, when you are the first one to email and buy stallions, you should go for Ghostzapper instead of Speightstown?

The scary part is that flip of a coin ended up being a monumental New SIM mistake (albeit one that wasn't too foreseeable). I am very happy with Mineshaft and Speightstown since I really wanted to start with obvious RL distance and sprint lines to use my mares with. Still, all of those Speightstown fillies I made probably would have been a bit scarier with Zapper on the top side.